1) I understand the apple phone comes with a 2 year cingular contract...but what I am not clear on, is do you HAVE to buy into the contract? What if you just want to use the iphone as a portable wifi device for awhile, and not use it as a phone? Can you?

2) I travel ALOT. Mostly to Taiwan. Will the iphone work over there with cingular? Or in Europe lets say?

1) I understand the apple phone comes with a 2 year cingular contract...but what I am not clear on, is do you HAVE to buy into the contract? What if you just want to use the iphone as a portable wifi device for awhile, and not use it as a phone? Can you?

Since many if not most of us here have already purchased our iPhones we can all officially answer your first question what a resounding "YES YOU CAN!!" errr... "NO YOU CANT??" errr... "WE JUST DONT KNOW?!?!"

Quote:

Originally Posted by regan

2) I travel ALOT. Mostly to Taiwan. Will the iphone work over there with cingular? Or in Europe lets say? Thanks, :-)

This I dunno for sure... I did hear something about the iPhone being TRI-BAND (but not QUAD-BAND) so... while (for one) can't answer with a huge degree of certainty I'd assume that YES the phone would be compatible (with Cingulars european network) but as for any providers that Cingular may have agreement with (to share towers/networks etc) I wouldn't know.

Yeah, i figured it was too soon to get an accurate answer. Guess I'll have to wait.

I know paying $500 for just using the iphone as a wifi/internet/music player and NOT a phone may seem silly...but I'd like to have that option. I mean I hope you arent forced to start paying on a contract right away.

Or maybe I am just being a typical guy whose affraid to commit. I dunno. :P

The information from Apple and Cingular is pretty clear. You have to sign up to a two-year Cingular contract in order to purchase the iPhone.

The iPhone would be much more expensive it it weren't being subsidised by Cingular in this way.

On the travel front, presumably Cingular have deals with foreign carriers. When you use your phone abroad, you'll connect to a local carrier and get charged an arm and a leg by Cingular to make and recieve calls. I'm sure a Cingular store or Cingular's website can fill you in on the details.